Under pressure from neighbors and property owners who want a safer and more beautiful park, Mayor Frank Jackson and Cleveland City Council agreed late last year to spend $1.6 million on a renovation. The design, first conceived in 2003 by landscape architects Thomas Balsley of New York and James McKnight of Cleveland, had languished for lack of funding.

Work on the park, located at Chester Avenue and East 12th Street, started late last year. Contractors removed the Brutalist-style concrete walls that blocked sightlines and leveled up the surface of the park, designed in the 1970s as a recessed bowl with a fountain in the center.

The nonprofit organization
ParkWorks
, which is managing the project, hopes to complete Phase 1 by fall. This would establish the bones of the plan, which look solid, but would lack amenities including furniture.

If ParkWorks can raise more money, work could continue through the spring of 2011. Phase 2 would include seating, picnic tables, trellises, a news kiosk and a play area with water jets. The question now is not whether Perk Park will be better, but how much better.